John Donne 1572–1631
English poet and divine 

1. New philosophy calls all in doubt.
   
    
   An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary (1611) l. 205
2. Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
   
    
   Elegies ‘The Anagram’ (1595)
3. No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
   As I have seen in one autumnal face.
   
    
   Elegies ‘The Autumnal’ (1600)
4. License my roving hands, and let them go,
   Behind, before, above, between, below.
   O my America, my new found land,
   My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned.
   
    
   Elegies ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ (1595)
5. Death be not proud, though some have called thee
   Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
   
    
   Holy Sonnets (1609) no. 6 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
6. One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
   And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die.
   
    
   Holy Sonnets (1609) no. 6 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
7. Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
   As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
   
    
   Holy Sonnets (after 1609) no. 10 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
8. Take me to you, imprison me, for I
   Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
   Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
   
    
   Holy Sonnets (after 1609) no. 10 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
9. What if this present were the world's last night?
   
    
   Holy Sonnets (after 1609) no. 19 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
10. Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which is my sin, though it were done before?
    Wilt thou forgive those sins, through which I run
    And do them still: though still I do deplore?
    When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
    For, I have more.
    
     
    ‘A Hymn to God the Father’ (1623)
11. On a huge hill,
    Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
    Reach her, about must, and about must go.
    
     
    Satire no. 3 (1594–5) l. 79
12. Air and angels.
    title of poem, Songs and Sonnets
13. All other things, to their destruction draw,
    Only our love hath no decay;
    This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,
    Running it never runs from us away,
    But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Anniversary’
14. Come live with me, and be my love,
    And we will some new pleasures prove
    Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
    With silken lines, and silver hooks.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Bait’; see Marlowe, Ralegh
15. For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Canonization’
16. I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
    Did, till we loved, were we not weaned till then?
    But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
    Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Good-Morrow’
17. And now good morrow to our waking souls,
    Which watch not one another out of fear.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Good-Morrow’
18. 'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘A Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day’
19. A bracelet of bright hair about the bone.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Relic’
20. Go, and catch a falling star,
    Get with child a mandrake root,
    Tell me, where all past years are,
    Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
    Teach me to hear mermaids singing.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘Song: Go and catch a falling star’
21. Busy old fool, unruly sun,
    Why dost thou thus,
    Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
    Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Sun Rising’
22. Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
    Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Sun Rising’
23. This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Sun Rising’
24. I am two fools, I know,
    For loving, and for saying so
    In whining poetry.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘The Triple Fool’
25. Thy firmness makes my circle just,
    And makes me end, where I begun.
    
     
    Songs and Sonnets ‘A Valediction: forbidding mourning’
26. Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls.
    ‘To Sir Henry Wotton’ (1597–8)
27. But I do nothing upon my self, and yet I am mine own Executioner.
    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) ‘Meditation XII’
28. No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.
    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) ‘Meditation XVII’
29. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) ‘Meditation XVII’
30. As soon as there were two, there was pride.
    LXXX Sermons (1640) 19 December 1619
31. There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.
    LXXX Sermons (1640) Easter Day, 25 March 1627
32. I throw myself down in my Chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
    LXXX Sermons (1640) 12 December 1626 ‘At the Funeral of Sir William Cokayne’
33. John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.
    in a letter to his wife, on being dismissed from the service of his father-in-law, Sir George More
    Izaak Walton The Life of Dr Donne (first printed in LXXX Sermons, 1640)